A Word About Wind has published our article What Is the Impact of Tax Reform on US Wind Tax Equity Deals? in its blog (subscription required) and newsletter. If you are unable to open the blog post, the text of the article is available below:

In 2018, the corporate tax rate has been reduced from 35% to 21%. The rate reduction means that US corporations will pay significantly less federal income tax, so the supply of tax equity will decline. However, most tax equity investors are expected to still pay enough tax to merit making tax equity investments.

Importantly, the rate reduction means sponsors of wind projects will be able to raise less tax equity as depreciation deductions are worth only $.21 per dollar of deduction rather than $.35 per dollar.

100% Bonus Depreciation

A partial mitigant to tax rate reduction is that the act provides the option of claiming 100% bonus depreciation (i.e. expensing), so depreciation deductions can be available in the first year (rather than over multiple years). However, the partnership tax accounting rules hamper the efficient use of 100% bonus depreciation. Continue Reading What Is the Impact of Tax Reform on US Wind Tax Equity Deals?

On December 22, 2017, the president signed the tax reform bill. It is generally identical to the conference committee bill discussed in our blog post of December 19, and specifically there were no changes with respect to renewable energy, corporate income taxes, partnerships or expensing. Therefore, our analysis of the conference committee bill holds true for the enacted bill.

The changes that were made to the bill were minor and were required by the Senate’s parliamentarian to comply with the “Byrd rule” in order for the bill to be passed with only a simple majority of the votes in the Senate. First, the parliamentarian objected to the “short title” of the bill being “Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.” The enacted bill does not have a “short title”, so it is being colloquially referred to as the actformerly known as the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. The parliamentarian’s other two objections related to aspects of the new tax on large endowments of colleges and universities and changes to the section 529 tuition reimbursement account program.

I suspect that as the act is studied by tax professionals that traps for the unwary, unexpected planning opportunities and technical glitches will be identified. To the extent they relate to the renewable energy industry, they will be covered in this blog.

Today, the House voted 227 to 303 in favor of the tax reform bill agreed to by the conference committee. No Democrats voted for the House bill, and 12 Republicans from high tax states voted against it. The Senate is expected to vote later this evening to approve it; it is possible that the president could sign the bill as early as tomorrow.

Below we describe the five differences from the House bill that are of greatest significance to the renewable energy tax equity market. (See also our prior analysis of the ramifications for the tax equity market of the House bill.)

Amounts of and Eligibility for Tax Credits

First, the amount of renewable energy tax credits available and the rules for qualifying for those credits are unchanged from current law under the Senate bill. Specifically, the inflation adjustment that applies to production tax credits is left in place and the “start of construction” rules are unchanged. The fact that the Senate bill left these provision alone is positive for wind and solar, which are in the midst of a phase-out, for wind, and a phase-down, for solar.

However, the Senate bill also left alone the lapsed tax credits for the “orphaned” renewable energy technologies that were inadvertently omitted from the 2015 extension that benefited wind and solar. The orphaned renewable energy technologies are fuel cells, geothermal, biomass, combined heat and power, landfill gas, small wind, solar illumination, tidal power and incremental hydroelectric.

Mayer Brown has launched its US Tax Reform Roadmap. The Roadmap includes a timeline of legislative events related to the current tax reform efforts and links to the documents that were passed, approved or introduced on those dates as well as links to Mayer Brown’s analysis regarding pertinent documents. It should be useful to have all of the legislative documents, and Mayer Brown’s analysis thereof, in one place and organized chronologically.

Our article Proposed GOP Tax Reform Would Curtail Tax Incentives for Wind and Solar is available from North American WindPower (no subscription required). The article includes a discussion of the politics of the Senate passing tax reform and a discussion of market implications; however, the discussion of the specific changes to the Internal Revenue Code is similar to our blog post GOP Tax Bill Proposes Changes to the Renewable Energy Industry’s Tax Incentives of November 4.

On Thursday, November 2, Republicans in the US House of Representatives released their proposed tax reform legislation, providing for massive alterations to tax law. The proposed legislation would trim tax benefits applicable to the wind and solar industries, while broadening the scope of the application of the “orphaned” energy tax credit. Further, it would eliminate the tax credit for electric vehicles starting in 2018. The proposed legislation is subject to further amendments and may not be enacted into final legislation.

Continuity of Construction. Pursuant to current law, the production tax credit (PTC) and investment tax credit (ITC) phase out over time, with the level of credit for which a renewable energy project qualifies being based on when the project began construction relative to various deadlines that determine the level of PTC or ITC. Under the proposed legislation, for any renewable energy project to qualify for a specific level of PTC or ITC, there would need to be continuous construction on such project from the deadline for the specific PTC or ITC level through the date the project is placed in service.

The concept of continuous construction does not exist in the current PTC and ITC provisions of the Tax Code. It was adopted by the IRS as an administrative matter in Notice 2013-29. However, the IRS later, under Notice 2016-31, created a safe harbor to enable projects to avoid application of the IRS’s “continuity” requirement. To qualify for the safe harbor, a project must be placed in service within four calendar years after the end of the calendar year in which construction began. The proposed legislation would effectively codify the continuity requirement and eliminate the safe harbor. Further, these changes appear to apply to all projects that have not been placed in service as of the date of enactment of the proposed legislation, regardless of whether construction of such projects began before enactment. Continue Reading GOP Tax Bill Proposes Changes to the Renewable Energy Industry’s Tax Incentives

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